Piece by Piece is the Right Concept for the Wrong Subject

As someone who’s not been particularly attentive to pop music, this was a hell of a way to find out Pharrell Williams had a hand in a lot of my least favourite songs of the past couple decades.

I first became aware of Williams as the guy in the hat -that strange tall hat he wore for a while, seemingly around the promotion of his song “Happy”. It was his recognizable gimmick at the time, and in fairness it worked at making him stand out. He apparently likes to go ever so slightly against the grain. And maybe it’s a similar tendency for gimmicks that drove him and Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Morgan Neville to render what would otherwise be a generic presentation of his life story in Lego animation. A curious concept, though like similar gimmicks in his career, perhaps just a garnish over shallowness.

Still, Piece by Piece is better than the hat -and notwithstanding the cynical brand integration of the animation, it is a creative and spontaneous lens to tell this story, or any story really. Clearly, Williams didn’t just want audiences to see him talk about his past, he wanted it to be recreated and in a pace that matched his reflections. Lego animation provides that very well and like in previous Lego movies, the movie is dotted too with a lot of charming details and little jokes.

But this is the first for a Lego movie on multiple fronts -their first endeavour at translating non-fiction, and for the most part their first non-comedy, even though there are plenty of comic observations from Williams and his collaborators, as they in even Lego-animated talking head sequences contribute perspectives and anecdotes. His story is presented very straightforward as a poor urbanite kid from Virginia Beach who found music during his school days in the 80s, got into rap with his school friend Chad Hugo, formed The Neptunes as teenagers and gradually became local then national successes as producers, from which Williams eventually took off with his own music to become the acclaimed titan that he is today. Classic rags to riches.

In fact it’s a little too classic. Williams’s story -certainly the way it is told here with his direct input- is not particularly interesting outside of the name-drops and a couple individual details of how certain breakthroughs came to be. It’s not just that his origins aren’t unique for a black musician of his generation, but that even in Lego, it doesn’t feel unique. Part of it is the documentary format, which doesn’t allow for much character to come through from anyone who isn’t interviewed directly -and even of those who are, most outside of Williams himself are flat, despite being crucial figures along his journey. Sure it’s neat on a superficial level to see Lego figures in the likenesses of Busta Rhymes, Jay-Z, and Snoop Dogg (and the Lego company through the production of this movie evolved their designs for new skin tones and hairstyles), but they don’t bring much personality to what is a fundamental music star narrative.

And frankly, Williams doesn’t bring that either. He’s got some charisma, but it doesn’t much come out in the telling of his story, which is pretty free of the kind of drama that makes documentaries like this interesting. There were no severe setbacks on the come-up (indeed, everything seemed to fall into place easily), no detours of alcohol or substance abuse that threatened to derail him. The big conflict that is presented that Williams had to overcome was selling out. He and Neville treat a period where he made music his heart wasn’t in (and that also wasn’t as much liked) as the bleakest moment of his life, and it’s honestly hard to take seriously -even for someone used to taking art seriously. It’s such a sanitary picture of a life, and the big theme Williams tries to impart on the importance of centring family and happiness (he of course wrote an irritating ear-worm on the subject) is strikingly earnest but not in any way distinct or enlightening. Hundreds of artists have come to the same conclusion, and many have expressed it in sharper ways.

In terms of their own narrative that is, because it is honestly the presentation of Piece by Piece that most often makes up for its substantive shortcomings. The Lego animation is nice and funny, and imbued with a considerable degree more personality than the stories  being related. For some of them, the style even saves them -making cute anecdotes into charming tapestries or taking banal ideas and illustrating them in unique ways -such as in compositions of feelings or sensations. I wonder if at any point in this process Williams and Neville were inspired by Flee, or even Richard Linklater’s Apollo 10½. The pace of Lego animation really suits the kind of free-flowing accounts that make up so much of the movie -the figures and sets can move and progress in time with the recollections and emotions of the speaker. And it is charming to see the diversity Lego was prompted to summon for this movie, not just in new figure designs, but new types of structures and objects; even as you can't help think about the marketing function in these.

But then I don't know where the demographic is for Lego play-sets and structures designed specifically around Pharrell Williams's life, and it's part of what makes the movie curious as an expansion of Lego's animation ambitions. Piece by Piece really is unlike anything they've produced before, and if nothing else it shows they have some potential for different kinds of moviemaking -though some limitations as well. For instance, the minimalist block style makes it a hard form for serious moments or beats -a moment of Williams getting emotional thus naturally comes off as comedic in the widened eyes and little tear droplets. Perhaps it's good then that Williams's life has so little drama for the animation to have to tackle.

His music is of course prominent throughout the movie, but there's notably a dearth of original songs written for it and nothing being pushed as a serious single. As I noted earlier, a lot of his work -both produced for others and performed by him himself- does not much appeal to me, but I can't say it is musically rewarding either way outside of some Lego recreations of notable music videos, because the performances aren't heavily or creatively featured. The energy of the music sometimes doesn't come across within the movement confines of the Lego pieces. Another sacrifice of the movie's conceit.

And it is a charming conceit. But Piece by Piece was perhaps not the right vehicle for it. I don't think Williams benefited from it either, much as it is still preferable to the boring straight doc it could have been otherwise. For Lego animation, it is a solid stepping stone more than a breakthrough. But Pharrell Williams is lucky the film of his life is interesting for that reason at least.

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